The Alaska State Fair, like many fairs, has a number of “competitions” that people can enter, like art, jams and jellies, vegetables, and kind of handcrafted item, animals, etc. Every year since I’ve been painting, up until last year, I would forget to take anything in for entry. Last year was the first year I remembered in time to do so and it was pretty last minute getting ready.

This year I decided to be more prepared. I decided about 3 months ahead of time what the subject matter would be for my painting. I found reference photos, and started painting. This year I decided on a bird of some kind.

The fair has some specific requirements for the professional category for watercolor. It cannot have been sold in any form, you can never had made prints out of the original, it had to be the original on display, and it had to be painted within the last 2 years.

Because most of what I do I immediately turn into digitized art and I sell it in the form of cards, prints, and sublimated products, the picture that I choose has to be a new painting, painted specifically for the fair, that way I remember not to digitize it immediately, and not to make anything else out of it for sale until after the fair.

When I decided to paint a bird, I found 2 very different reference photos that really caught my attention and decided that I would paint both. The down side to that is that I fell in love with both of them. So I took them to the Farmer’s Market this past Friday to get the public’s opinion on their favorite. The people of Willow and many tourists were excited to have opportunity to choose, and almost 200 people cast their votes! I so appreciate everyone who was willing and came by, or voted online, thank you!

At the end of the day, after I had gotten home, I counted all the votes. There was one definite winner, but it was a closer race than I had anticipated. The next day I headed to the fairgrounds to enter that painting into the competition. I am excited to see how it does! If you live in Alaska, go check it out and see if you can find it amongst all the other beautiful pieces of art!